


A Kiss with a Ghost is Better than None

by Chainofprospit



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Everyone kisses everyone, F/M, M/M, Multi, Noah gets all of the kisses, Post-Blue Lily Lily Blue, The Dream Thieves Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-09-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:11:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chainofprospit/pseuds/Chainofprospit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"Noah," said Gansey, "I do not know all that much about Blue Sargent's particular feelings on relationships, but I am pretty sure that is not how these things typically work."</em>
</p>
<p>  <em>At this, Noah intoned: "Mister Gansey, you don't know all that much about relationships at all if you think every one of them involves only two people."</em></p>
<p>Blue confesses to Gansey about her and Noah's kiss. Gansey is a lot more interested than he expected to be. Noah is a very keen delivery boy. (Contains spoilers for TRB and TDT.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fluffalotae (birbcore)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbcore/gifts).



> The basis of this fic is basically: "What if Gansey and Blue both kissed Noah since they can't kiss each other?" 
> 
> Expect a lot of blushing, a lot of painfully dorky similes, and a lot of Everyone Loves Noah.

Blue Sargent had been kissed exactly one proper time in her seventeen years of life, and it was not by Richard Campbell Gansey the Third.

This had not been nearly as ethically distressing before herself and the aforementioned student of Aglionby Academy – the sort of boy she’d sworn once upon a time to stay away from, a fact which she now reflected upon with a twinge of embarrassment – had officially cemented their ‘dating’ status. It had been even less distressing back when she hadn’t known what she was missing, back when she still thought she’d perhaps never kiss a boy in her entire life. (Funnily enough, the boy she’d broken _that_ rule with was also an Aglionby student, though she wasn’t sure if that quite counted when he hadn’t technically attended school since being murdered seven years ago.)   

Unfortunately, “before” and “back when” were roughly the equivalent to “not now;” meaning, in short, that at current time and place, Blue was in a tentative, terrifying, and completely tormenting relationship with the illustrious Richard Gansey.

And that the one kiss she’d been allowed in her lifetime had not been with him.

Blue didn’t like the feeling of guilt. Logically, there was no reason to feel guilty for having kissed Noah. She hadn’t been with Gansey then; it had been Adam she couldn’t kiss. And both of them had agreed that it was just to see. (How badly she wanted to regret it! How horrible it was knowing, and how desperately she would never give it up.) But still, the niggling feeling of hiding something from him, and for a few days now the anxiety had been growing like a tangle of worms behind her sternum, wondering what would happen if Noah brought it up, if Ronan suspected she was hiding something and told Gansey, if Cabeswater or Gansey’s mattress or the pool table suddenly sprang to life and implicated her crime?

It was after four or so days of trepidation, the worrying growing each hour and taken out mercilessly on her poor skeins of yarn (no scarf in the world had any business being this long, but fiercely gripping metal knitting needles is, she thought, a slightly safer stress fidget than chewing her lower lip to shreds – besides, the latter just made her think more about kissing), that Orla apparently grew sick of her “bad vibes” and stomped into the bathroom without knocking to declare:

“Just freakin’ talk to your Richie Rich boyfriend already, little emo! Mary Magda _lena_ you are _so_ _fixated_.”

Flushed and furious and promptly yelling at Orla to not invade her private moments with the only proper mirror in the house, Blue later reeled in embarrassed shame.

All things reluctantly admitted, though, Orla was right. Even if it was ridiculous, or even if it would ruin things and make them awkward, it was eating at her, and it wouldn’t stop until she talked to Gansey.

Which was how she ended up on the second-floor landing of Monmouth Manufacturing in rolled-up dungarees, a sunhat, and a shirt made out of repurposed tablecloth, hands wringing and absolutely determined that she would not back out of this conversation, no matter how terrible it was. In her head, she hoped very very loudly that Noah would find someplace else to be for this. _Please get the message,_ she prayed.

To her unspeakable relief, it was Gansey who answered the door. He was still in his school uniform and looked politely surprised, and Blue realized that it was quite possible he had only arrived back at Monmouth shortly before she. She did her best to suppress a rising heat in her cheeks, having neglected to consider that.

“Well, hello, Jane,” said Gansey pleasantly.

Blue took a breath.

“Ihavetotellyousomething.”

She could see the bulge of his throat pressing thickly from behind his collar. A faint recognition that maybe she shouldn’t have phrased it like that tugged at her like a light pull, and she had to again forcefully strengthen her resolve.

Carefully, ever-gracious: “Please, come in.”

She did.

Gansey wandered over to the kitchen-bathroom-laundry and fetched himself a bottle of apple juice, then offered her any beverage she’d like. She snorted, but at his strained expression, acquiesced.

After taking a long draught from his own juice, eyebrows knotted like yachting rope, Gansey gestured to offer Blue the couch. She went and perched on it, wishing she weren’t wearing boots so she could lace her toes together like Maura did when she was anxious. They were itching for some sort of distracting sensation. Talking to people was hard. Talking to boyfriends were hard. She should have listened to past Blue and stayed away from boys.

“So,” said Gansey, tight as a topsail and upsettingly Abercombie-esque. “What can I do for you, Jane?”

She thumbed the cap of her Snapple, chewing the inside of her cheek, then abruptly pushed herself up back to standing. Being seated felt unnatural, especially wound as tensely as she was right now. Upright, she faced him, stern and stubborn.

“... _IkissedNoah_.”

Gansey’s expression, which had been braced, suddenly fell slack, eyes widening and the corners of his mouth dropping tension. His lips parted, ever-so-slightly, in surprise. A horrid trepidation was twisting inside Blue’s chest, but so far, the pieces she could observe just added up to… something unrecognisable.

“I –” she blurted, at the same time as Gansey breathed out a single, relieved,

“Oh.”

They both blinked at each other, then stumbled over their clashing words, each seeking to acquiesce to the other. Gansey won out for speaking privileges.

“I just – I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear at all. I had to process, so sorry, Jane.”

“No! I mean, no, god, it’s totally fine, seriously, process all you need.” Blue suddenly wanted to sit again, but plopping back on the couch seemed like it would make having stood at all pointless, so she found Gansey’s desk with her back and leaned against it. _Don’t chew your fingernails. It’s gross,_ scolded Orla’s voice in her head, and she tried to resist blanching at the idea that Gansey might think a bad habit like that might make her Undignified or Base.

Gansey, in the meantime, seemed altogether unconcerned with Blue’s fingernails, instead exhaling a thoughtful breath. He seemed entirely too calm.

“Well, then. You kissed… Noah? That’s, what you wanted to tell me?”

Heat fought to her cheeks. “Yes.”

“I see.” His thumb was rubbing over his bottom lip infuriatingly. “I… did this happen while we… Or, well. Rather, after we started being together?”

Blue blinked at him. Once. Twice. Then she remembered to speak. “No! It was – I mean, no, before that. We were just… talking. And he was being very sympathetic. And we were just, talking.” She’d said that already. She winced, and clarified, “About… how I couldn’t really, you know. Kiss. Anyone. With my curse.”

She eyed Gansey carefully for reactions. He no longer seemed either strained or embarrassed, just interested, leaning forward with that tilt of the head he always did when he was on the phone with Mallory. With a rush of tentative relief, she continued.

“It kind of just happened. I mean – well. It was Noah’s idea. He can’t die because he’s _dead_ , and, I dunno. You know. I said yes.” She did not want to think about what that prickling warmth indicated about the color of her cheeks right now, instead bravely plowing on. “It was an experiment. It only happened once. It won’t happen again – I mean, _obviously_. It was just… I just… wanted to see.”

By the end of that sentence, Blue found that she felt very, very small. Not because she was embarrassed, or ashamed; oddly enough, that had begun to pass, and seemed on its way to being completely gone. Instead, it was the feeling of having to once again acknowledge, this time out loud, the fact that a kiss, a simple kiss, was not on the list of things Blue Sargent could have in any foreseeable stretch of future. It felt like a fairy tale; it felt like a prison probation. She would only ever get the one time, the kiss of the dead. She unwrapped her grip from the cranberry Snapple in her hands and twisted off the cap, bringing it to her lips to swallow in some kind of rebellion.

There had been silence from Gansey during her reflection, but now, glancing up at her with befuddling innocence, he said, “Noah can kiss?”

A tendril of resentment sneaked up and wrapped around Blue’s introspection. Miniscule microseconds of recovery from the question hardened it into fury: That. _That_. THAT was his reaction?? Hoping furiously for Gansey’s sake that he was suffering from shock and not simply too divinely self-assured to be at all ruffled by the fact that his girlfriend had kissed his roommate before him (something which she had been avidly defending as not unethical previously to herself, but right now it seemed like some sort of horrific slight that he was unbothered), Blue puffed an uncertain but certainly displeased breath through her nose.

“ _Yes_ , Gansey!” She had no idea what she was about to rail, but she could positively feel the volcano powering up its eruption. “Noah can kiss. It’s _completely_ shocking, I know, except that it’s _not_ , because he was a _normal human boy_ for his entire life up until seven years ago, and he can KISS and I KISSED HIM and it was _very nice!_ In fact, it was marvelous! It was something I’d altogether long to do again except that I _can’t!_ ”

That was it, she thought. That was why she was mad. It was nice to have figured it out. “I can’t ever kiss the person I want to kiss, and it’s super grand, by which I mean it royally _sucks_ , MISTER Richard Gansey. And gosh, you know, I would have thought that meant anything? But I guess it doesn’t matter all that much to you, Mister I-Could-Kiss-Whoever-I-Wanted-To. Well, guess what? You can’t kiss _me_ , so ha ha to you. _And_ to me. Are you _satisfied_?”

Once her vision stopped flashing red, she calmed down enough to notice Gansey properly. He seemed to have aged thirty years since she’d been paying attention; not with worry or shame or even weariness at being yelled at. He looked old with sorrow. Her heart dropped suddenly; having risen with seizing and frustration it now floated downwards, deflated of energy.

Gansey did not look satisfied. He did not look satisfied at all, he did not look like it didn’t matter to him. He did not look amused or superior (how was that always her fear, still, despite how she had grown to know him?), nor did he look bitter or scolded. He just looked sad.

He smiled at her, and looked no happier as he did so. “I’m rather envious of Noah right now. I don’t think I ever really imagined a world in which his life would be so appealing to me.”

As her heart had deflated, the rest of Blue sank in on herself now too. Her nose tickled, and she ignored it.

“I’m not… mad, Blue,” said Gansey next. “Aside from the fact that you did nothing wrong – like you said, it was before we were even together – I just can’t think of anything I’d hate worse in the world than to think that because of me, you would never be kissed.”

His eyes, the hazel of thousand-dollar brandy, swam in hers. “You deserve to be kissed, Jane.”

A thrill entirely incongruent with the mess of emotions she’d cycled through for the past several minutes surged from her stomach up to her ears and down to her toes.

“... Yes, well.” The thrill couldn’t quite reconcile with the stubborn stone in her stomach. “I can’t. So, I had my one time.”

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ears that she knew would float back the moment she released it. “Now I can die not a lip-virgin, I guess.” Then the recollection that this was Gansey compelled her to correct. “Or. Live. You know what I mean. I’ve had my first kiss. Now it’s done.”

Sometime halfway through her sentence, Blue’s gaze had floated up to the distant ceiling. She puffed out her cheeks, then released the air held inside them. A few seconds of letting her gaze blur out and fade back in experimentally soon revealed a Gansey standing over her. He had walked over to the desk, and was gazing at her curiously, as if waiting for her to come back down to earth.

Flushes were traitorous things.

“Jane Sargent, if I could be Noah Czerny right now, I would kiss you one hundred million thousand times until no inch of you was left remaining that hadn’t been cherished exactly as much as it deserves to.”

Her throat trembled.

“One hundred million thousand isn’t a real number.”

And then all at once, he was Gansey-Boy again; confident and golden and just brimming with a welcoming smile, his very gaze a handshake to all in his presence, offensively handsome and every tanned inch of him doing something quite awful to Blue’s horrid teenage hormones.

“Quite so, Jane,” he said cheerily. “Also quite so: the fact of the time, which very regretfully informs me that I’m late for picking up Adam.”

Stuttering, Blue forced out a, “You – are _so_ dramatic.” This had all happened so fast, somehow. Hadn’t it? She wasn’t quite sure. “Fine. That’s it. That’s all I needed to tell you. I’m glad you’re not upset. You’re late for Adam, I’m late for a date with homework. We should all be quite glad we’re sensible enough not to turn this into an episode of Degrassi.”

That pleasantly tilted head indicated that Gansey had probably never watched a teen-targeted TV show in his life, and it made her desperately want to roll her eyes and propose to him all at once.

“Don’t forget your Snapple,” he reminded, starting a leisurely stride towards the door. Then, a little more hesitant, a little more real: “I’m glad you told me. Really. It means something that you wanted me to know.”

Small and expansive and dizzy and altogether uninterested in the barely-touched bottle of Snapple (which she took along anyway to allow Gansey to feel more like a gracious host), Blue nodded and followed him out to the landing.

“Yes, well,” she said. “It seemed like the sort of day for telling ghost stories.”

He laughed, unrestrained and gentle, and side by side, they made way down the stairs – Gansey finding her hand to squeeze at the bottom of the landing, her palm cupped in both of his, the closest imitation of a parting kiss that felt safe enough to share. Outside the door, she retrieved her bike while he drew around to the Camaro.

“I don’t suppose you’d accept a ride back home, Jane?” he offered, smile saying he already knew the answer.

“No, I don’t suppose I would,” she said, kicking out her bike stand and hopping on it to find the pedals. “Tell Adam I’m sorry you were late.”

“I will,” he promised, and, pushing her legs to start the bicycle rolling, Blue Sargent blew Richard Gansey a cheeky air kiss of the sort she would never make solid.

It had been, so far, a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I slightly tweaked a couple parts here because I re-read it and hated the pacing. Hopefully it helped a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

Noah found Gansey later that night. He was up, as he so often was, long past the stroke of midnight, staring at the vast model of Henrietta sprawled across their living room floor. A bottle of glue dangled dangerously in his hands. He wasn’t really moving, just rubbing his free thumb pensively across his lower lip and ignoring the ache in his back from sitting in the same position too long. It was the position Noah found him in – though perhaps ‘found’ wasn’t the right word. Noah never quite seemed to have to look.

His friend sat down behind him, not making any sound. Gansey would never stop wondering whether his soundless nature was part of his quiet and subtle personality, or a side effect of insubstantiality. He didn’t acknowledge the other, just put down his glue bottle with a soft sigh. He didn’t look at Noah’s face, his smudgy cheek, his soft, pale lips. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel wondering about how they might have felt kissing Jane.

“It was nice,” said Noah, in that way he had of always knowing how to answer his friends’ thoughts.

Still, uncertain of the line between intuition and prescience, Gansey pulled off his thin glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He allowed himself now to spare a glance, Noah’s already vague edges still more blurry without the corrective lenses. “Pardon?” he said politely.

“Blue,” explained Noah, adjusting so that he was sitting cross-legged – his favorite position, though it always nudged up the hem of his almost-too-short slacks, revealing his ankles and making him look so infinitely young. Gansey rubbed his glasses and put them back on. “Kissing. She’s… it’s nice. I’m sorry you can’t kiss her. I wish you could. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

He sounded that delicate balance between matter-of-fact, apologetic, and near glum. He poked at his own shoe contemplatively.

If Gansey was honest with himself, he hadn’t even really thought about it, and that truth sat in his lungs a little, like a pebble: to consider whether it was because he was neglecting to treat Noah as a real person with agency. But within a moment his mind had drifted to the recollection Noah was sharing. _Nice. It had been nice_. He wished he could have a ‘nice’ kiss with Jane, or a very not-nice kiss with Jane, and he thought he could feel a little warmth in his face thinking about it.

“Just once, right?” he asked carefully, not sure if the answer would change how he felt or not.

Noah nodded, perching over to examine the cardboard imitation of St. Agnes church curiously.

Blue was right. It was just to see, and they really genuinely acted still just like friends around each other. He couldn’t even imagine seeing it as a betrayal. The very concept felt alien. It was like… a wistful envy, instead.

So if neither of them had been emotionally attached to the kiss, then surely it was okay to…

“Would you…” The words felt like a peppermint candy in his mouth, like he had to slip them from side to side on his tongue to get them right. “... tell me about it?” Oh god did that sound horrible and voyeuristic, was it creepy, was it awful, was it ––

He rushed on. “I mean, not to invade anyone’s privacy. Only if you think it’s okay. It was … between you two, of course.”

Noah straightened again, looking thoughtful. “I mean, not all. It was kind of about you, I think.”

Gansey couldn’t shape this sentence into any sort of sense in his head, so he just stared at Noah helplessly, too tired to word anything but an expression that hopefully conveyed an unverbalizable series of question marks: _'????'_

Noah’s hands faltered at his collar, toying at the edge for a half second before skimming his pocket, running over his own fingertips, then again falling as they often did, unable to find comfortable purchase. He pursed his lips, squinted one eye, breathed out, then sported an endearingly lopsided grin. “Well, I mean, we were kind of playing Gansey.”

Gansey politely conveyed another series of question marks. _'????'_

Noah’s face was a shade more vibrant and flesh-toned. “It was a Gansey day. You know. All… ‘Let’s have a _mint_ leaf, _Mis_ ter Gansey!’ and ‘Oh yes, what _mar_ velous notes, Gansey;’ ‘ _Thank_ you, Gansey;’ ‘We sure do have a nice pillow, Mister Gansey!’ ‘I _agree,_ Gansey!’”

All Gansey could think of was whatever baffling jump would had led the two to ‘ _Kiss_ me, Mister Gansey!’ and wasn’t all that entirely sure whether the scenario was faintly disturbing or bizarrely charming.

Voicing none of this, he asked instead: “You hijacked my pillow?”

“It was before you got the couch,” said Noah.

He wasn’t sure whether that made sense or not, and had to fall into silence for another moment struggling to puzzle any of it out before finally succumbing to begging more details from Noah.

“... something about kissing, ‘Mister Gansey?’” He could have winced at his own phrasing, but allowed himself the respite of blaming it on sleep deprivation. For now.

A solidifying warmth flushed Noah’s cheeks. He poked at one of his bony knees. “I asked her about Adam.”

“Ah,” said Gansey, and then felt his brows contort in confusion as he realized the implications of said statement. “... Ahh,” he repeated.

Because this had been not just ‘before,’ this had been when _Adam,_ and his chest was a tumble of guilt and illicit thrills, because despite his painful awareness of his own denial, they still hadn’t _said_ anything, not before, and not Blue, not Jane –– she had been with _Adam_ , but thinking about _him_ , and the understanding of this was alarming and shameful and delicious.

Noah was continuing, heedless of Gansey’s private internal war.

“Anyway, well, she told me about the curse. Prediction? Prophecy? I dunno –– but she seemed really sad about it, so… I said, she could kiss me, if she wanted.”

The tug behind his sternum could have been either heartbreak or thrill, and he wasn’t sure it wasn’t both. The Adam conundrum seemed far behind. “And you did.”

Noah didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He was wearing his Happy Smile, which he only ever did around Blue, really, and Gansey knew he was remembering for him.

A sigh slipped from Gansey’s lips like an endless silk ribbon from a street performer’s hat, like a flower petal, falling, not exhaled at all but a breath simply released. He let the ribbon fall to get it out of the gears in his head, so that they might return to their gentle whirring, to process all this, to take it in and produce some conclusion, some sort of nugget of understanding. He tried to figure out, distancing himself from his own machinelike brain, whether or not he wants to, needs to, know more –– whether it will be worse or better to know, but of course he knows he is going to regardless. He’s always given in when it comes to Blue, he recognizes. She was his weakness; she brought out the worst-best-most-desirous in him.

“Say again what you said it was like?”

Gansey was grateful for the enveloping blanket of the night, the sort of stifled softness that made the rest of the world seem less real, and questionable decisions seem less far-fetched.

Noah was too chipper for nighttime, really, but Gansey supposed it wasn’t like night was any different than day for him – “Nice,” he said, then paused, and added, like a confession: “I mean, we kind of messed up the first couple times.”

That. His gears stuck. “ _Couple times?_ ”

Noah, hollow eyes stretching wider and blinking, stuttered to recover his words. “Not like that! I mean –– it wasn’t like, _separate occasions_. Just, you know; we’re friends! So… it was weird, and we had to try again to get it right.” He tugged at his Aglionby sweater sleeves anxiously. “It was just that time, though. Like, once we did get it right. I promise.”

Gansey found that his voice was somewhat faint. It occurred to him that he was not sure whether or not he really liked this. “What, exactly, is ‘right’?” He vehemently avoided entertaining his imagination. “Is there a _right_ way to kiss someone?”

Noah grinned, shoulders still wary but expression now sly. “What, do you need me to show _you_ what a kiss is like, too?”

Gansey shook his head, not in the mood for frivolity. “You know perfectly well I’ve kissed before. I just wasn’t aware there was a _wrong_ way.”

Noah, clearly enjoying this turn in conversation, sighed long-sufferingly and rolled his eyes. (It gave Noah a lot of glee to roll his eyes whenever he had the chance.) “Well, unlike _some_ people, Gansey, Blue and I don’t really get ample _opportunities_ to keep in _practice_ , you know.” Gansey vaguely wondered if it had been Ronan who taught Noah how to milk pity so smugly, or whether that had been a natural skill. “Would you rather I say it was completely natural and it was exactly immediately excellent kissing and we made out all night furiously on your bed? Because I could tell you that!”

He found himself hoping the skill was Ronan-bred. Two sneaky little shits was altogether too many to have in a household.

“It’d be a lie,” clarified Noah, as though Gansey hadn’t gotten that part, “but I’m not _Ronan_ , so.” He shrugged gleefully.

Gansey really had to work on that jaw-clenching reflex. He would end up grinding his teeth, and that would be a terrible habit to develop. All of his blood was in his neck and ears, hot and distracting. “No. I’d really rather you not tell me that. I was just asking, and I apologize, I didn’t mean to judge.”

“Quite,” said Noah perkily.

Like a silk ribbon. Deep breath in… Gansey coached himself, desperate to reachieve calm. Deep breath out. Slowly…

Feeling his muscles had uncoiled enough for it to be safe, Gansey allowed himself to open his mouth again. “... She liked it?”

Noah looked impish and proud. “Well, yeah. Just because I’m out of practice doesn’t mean I’m not a good kisser.”

“Good,” he said. Swallowing. Calming. He picked up the bottle of glue again, twisting the cap closed idly so that it wouldn’t dry out. “Jane should like being kissed. She deserves that much.”

“It’d probably be easier if she didn’t.”

Gansey silently greeted the return of astute!Noah and sighed.

“Yeah.”

The other was wry now. He leaned back on his hand, lifting up a tiny cardboard chimney that hadn’t been attached anywhere yet. “Honestly, you two should just have me kiss the both of you for each other. Since clearly you’re not getting anywhere by yourselves.”

"Noah," said Gansey, "I do not know all that much about Blue Sargent's particular feelings on relationships, but I am pretty sure that is not how these things typically work."

At this, Noah intoned: " _Mister_ Gansey, you don't know all that much about relationships at all if you think every one of them involves only two people."

Gansey just looked at him for a moment, confused, before managing to suss out where he had made an error. He considered this, once, twice, thrice, before responding: “Well. I suppose I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

Looking pleased, Noah put down the cardboard chimney carefully where he had found it. He bit his lip and, a little over-casually, said: “Well, just so you know. The offer would be open, if you ever wanted it.”

One. Two. Three. “The offer to… be our kissing substitute?”

“Yep.”

This was not at all the conversation he had expected to be walking into. Though he supposed technically Noah had been the one walking into it. Gansey had been sitting.

“I see.”

As though this somehow indicated completion of the topic, Noah pushed himself up to standing, stretching. He really was an alarmingly lifelike imitation of a Real Boy sometimes. “Cool. Well, have fun sniffing glue.” He stepped over a pile of magazines, and kicked a piece of trash Chainsaw had dragged out from under the desk out of the way. “G’nite!”

And then a door closed without Noah having to have made any further steps, and his friend was safely behind his door, presumably for the night.

It seemed more and more unlikely to Gansey that he would be getting any reasonably restful sleep that night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Gansey.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought discussing potential three-way kissing would be sexy and easy, you were WRONG.

It was not always easy being right, thought Dick Gansey, Jr., chewing a mint leaf morosely.

The “rightness” in question was currently attributable to the Gansey of two days previous, whose prognostication – that he would be unable to stop thinking about Noah’s statement anytime soon – had proved to be, and remain, wearily correct. The constant recollection had been plaguing his nights, days, and in-betweens, popping up at very inconvenient moments, like in the shower, or when the waiter at Nino’s asked for his order. It was all very troublesome, and indeed troubl _ing_ , especially considering that Gansey was certain that Noah’s sly comment had just been a friendly joke. In fact, rationally, his fixation on the memory could probably be argued as an intrusive thought. He had read about intrusive thoughts in a _Psychology Today_ article once.

If this was an example of intrusive thoughts, he mused, that would mean it wasn’t really Gansey’s true mind talking. Which, after all, made much more sense, because what reason did Gansey really have to be obsessing (though he didn’t really like that term in general) over the entirely humorous theory of kissing Noah? Noah had kissed Blue, which was all well and good because Blue had asked him to, but really, it was entirely nonsensical to switch it around any other direction. Gansey and Blue kissing made sense, though it was impossible. Blue and Noah kissing made sense, though it was enviable. Somehow connecting the two ends of that triangle with Noah and Gansey, though, that didn’t make any sense at all. He was with Jane, that was all.

Well. Though. His _earlier_ thought could maybe stand to be a little more forgiving in its vocabulary. He wasn’t a mind-reader, so technically it was unfair to apply _certainty_ to his interpretation of Noah’s proposition. It wouldn’t be right to speak _for_ Noah that he hadn’t meant it. But it was fair, Gansey thought, to say that he was pretty sure. Really pretty sure. Almost completely sure, really.

Which meant that he should tell Blue.

Right? Perhaps. Maybe. It wasn’t _important_ , per say. But Blue had said before how she liked to be included. Surely she would appreciate this amusing anecdote. “Noah made the most humorous comment the other day,” he imagined himself saying. “You should hear it.”

Wait. No. “Noah said something funny” would be better. He really had to tone down his conversational lexicon sometimes, he knew. He was rarely aware of _when_ he was sounding pretentious, but he did try to be safe rather than sorry when he remembered.

Blue would think it was silly. It was almost cartoonish, really. He entertained himself with an imagined stick figure animation where a cute scribbled ghost floated between a stick figure boy and a stick figure girl, delivering emoticon kisses. Yes, funny. Amusing. He was feeling better and more normal about it already. He’d mention it to Blue. If the conversation had a lull, anyway, or it seemed appropriate to insert a short anecdote. No pressing matter. Just if he had a chance.

As though the thought of her had summoned it, a text buzzed into Gansey’s cell phone.

> _Mom demands an official Meet-the-boyfriend dinner, even tho shes already met u… >s< Are u free tonight? Calla will make pesto sauce and is at store now so needs 2 know. Sorry xo_

His heart fluttered in fondness. It still made his stomach twist every time Jane added xs and os to her text messages, or used the word “boyfriend.” He knew Ronan called it the “honeymoon period” behind his back, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. He couldn’t enjoy kissing Jane, so he might as well enjoy the stupidly giddy feeling of being with her as long as it lasted. For something like the sixteenth time, he silently thanked Maura for the guilt-easing cell phone she had bought Blue upon her return from the caves. They still called, but having a cell meant the two could also exchange messages back and forth throughout the day. It wasn’t all that often – Blue was unused to actually having a phone of her own, and so frequently forgot that she possessed the ability to send texts – but it was something, and it was a something Gansey treasured unabashedly.

> _Always free for u, Jane. What time? xxx_
> 
> _**  
>   
>  ** _

A few hours, at least three awkwardly threatening exchanges with Calla and/or Maura, and what seemed like multiple gallons of pesto sauce later, Blue and Gansey were finally alone. She plopped on her bed next to Gansey, leaning back with a sigh. They had begged off of desert in favor of getting frozen yogurt with the rest of the boys in town, and had retreated to Blue’s room in the name of “getting ready.” Really it was for a brief reprieve of privacy. It seemed that there was so little time that they shared as the two of them; it still felt, each occasion, like a secret. Perhaps because there was always That which remained unsaid.

Gansey reclined with a matching sigh beside her, gazing up as he always did at the pasted-up canvas trees. He pretended he was in Cabeswater for a moment, felt a stirring of longing, but his heart soon settled back into the current place. Blue’s room was always curious to him, but her presence wasn’t. For someone towards whom Gansey always found himself bemused and in awe, it was almost surprising how natural and at ease he felt around her alone. She understood, he thought, some things that no one else did, or perhaps would.

All of a sudden he felt repulsed by the idea that there should ever be anything in his life that Blue couldn’t know.

“Noah said something earlier,” he said.

Blue turned her head to look at him. He turned his head to look at her.

“Something funny, I mean. I forgot about it over dinner; I was gonna mention it because he was talking about us.”

“I miss Noah,” Blue said. “Is he coming to yogurt tonight?”

“Won’t know until we get there,” Gansey said.

“What did he say that was funny?”

Gansey very deliberately held in a swallow. “He said… God, I’m trying to remember exactly. He was commenting on our – situation, you know. He said something like… ‘You two should just have me kiss the both of you for each other because you can’t do it directly.’ Or something like that.”

Blue rolled over onto her stomach, propping her chin up on her hands and looking at him thoughtfully. “But, well, that wouldn’t work anyway, because you’d have to be into kissing boys.”

Gansey had not thought of that at all. Because of… reasons.

He stared out the window thoughtfully for a moment, vaguely taking in the darkening evening, then lowered the thumb that had found his bottom lip.

“Well,” he said after a minute. “I mean…”

He wasn’t sure how that sentence was supposed to end, really, lapsing off in consideration. Fortunately it took Blue less time than him to process her thoughts, because after a short stare, she managed to voice, “My god, seriously _no one_ at Aglionby is straight, are they!?”

Gansey mulled over this question. “It really is rather full of homoerotic tendencies, for a school full of boys largely flocking from conservative, Republican households.” Not excluding himself, even.

Blue sat up, folding her arms and eyeing him with narrowed eyebrows as though assessing him. Finally, she said, “Well.”

Gansey blinked at her politely.

“I’d be up for it if you were.”

Gansey wasted time musing idly over the homophobic yet homoerotic culture of Aglionby Academy before the words spoken sunk in. Uncertain he hadn’t missed something, he hoisted himself up on his elbows and said, “Wait, I’m sorry. Repeat?”

Blue seemed remarkably unbothered by the daunting weight of her statement. She appeared simply thoughtful. “Noah. Kissing. It’s kind of a thoughtful suggestion.” She shifted, tucking her feet under her legs and shifting her weight. “I mean, would he really not be bothered by that? I don’t think you really said. Seriously, it’s very sweet.” She looked at him, with a genuine and prompting expression, as though she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t immediately be on the same page.

“Sweet,” he echoed vaguely.

Blue frowned.

“Yeah, well, I mean, it would be really terrible being used as a kissing doll for two other people if you didn’t trust them or anything, right? So him offering is basically saying, ‘We’re close enough that I wouldn’t feel used to be a… a, I mean, you know, a like, back-and-forth…”

“A conduit?” suggested Gansey reflexively.

Blue pursed her lips sharply. “A _back-and-forth_ of your _affection_ to each other,’” she finished. “Which is a _nice_ sentiment, and honestly, that’s not something most people would offer. I’m going to tell him it’s sweet. I mean, irregardless of if you’d do it or not. It’s really nice of him to put that out there.”

Gansey thought he might be a little lightheaded. “It is?”

Her eyebrows were narrowed now in addition to her pursed lips, and her cheeks looked like they might be getting a hint of plum. Gansey had come to recognize it as the expression that accompanied every emotion she didn’t want to have. It was anyone’s guess which this one was. Possibly frustration at his not understanding. He was really trying to get a hang of guessing.

She was continuing on anyway, hopefully about to tell him. “Well, _god_ , Gansey, don’t you think so? Do you not think of anything besides yourself?” His only thought was that that was a little unfair. But she wasn’t done.

“Oh wait, my bad. Of course there’s always _Glendower_.” She huffed. “ _Yes_. It _is_. Noah is _very, very nice_ , and just for that I’m going to give him ANOTHER kiss, on the cheek, for being such a _very good friend_. I assume you’re okay with that, since it’s on the cheek.”

Gansey made a very intelligent and dignified sound at this, a little too behind on the whole brain processing thing to respond properly.

Blue stood up. “You could, too. Since, you know, you’re apparently okay with kissing boys.” She picked at the ripped fabric of her shirt. “Is that why you and Ronan––? Wait – you know what, never mind. I don’t actually want to know about that.”

“Oh, no, not with – I never –"

“No, seriously,” she said. “I _don’t want to know_.”

Gansey was torn between further denying the implication and just letting it go. He eventually settled on the latter. He stood up and stepped beside Blue, carefully to see if she’d let him, testing how legitimate her frustration was. She turned to leaned into him instead of away, and he let his arms drape around her, dropping his chin to rest gently on her head. Her hands found his back and curled in his maroon sweater, her lashes brushing his collarbone and eliciting a soft shiver.

Blue sighed. “So. Kissing boys.”

He made another, inquisitive noise into Blue’s wildly clipped hair.

Blue made a noise back, remaining snuggled against his chest. He wondered if she could hear his heart rapidly beating. “Nothing. Just, a fun cool thing we teens have in common. Super hobbies. You like kissing boys? Well how about that! Turns out, I do, too.”

Gansey nodded carefully, still not sure what to say. He tried to make words, but his throat only made some sort of mildly strangled sound.

Blue’s arms wrapped more tightly around him, and she buried her head deeper into his collarbone. “It was nice,” she mumbled, and the wetness of her voice made Gansey realize all of a sudden that the emotions of this conversation had shifted. He held her more securely close. “Do you think it’s nice? Have you ever actually kissed a boy? Should I be asking this? Am I making it harder? I think I’m making it harder for myself. But now I’m thinking about it, and I can’t go back and un-think it.”

Gansey let out a soft breath, uncertain what parts of himself to express. Everything felt a little tender or throbbing or raw. He toyed with the loose hair at the nape of her neck softly, stroking. “Unfortunately for us, Jane Sargent, I think we are both potentially very bad at not liking kissing.”

She made a small distressed sound, like a cat, and pressed tighter against him. They stood like that slowly loosening until they were breathing softly in time together and then Blue said, “It’s okay if you haven’t.”

Gansey almost queried what she was referring to, but she was continuing on before he could.

“I know it hurts to be less experienced than someone, but I’m sure you’ll catch up one day. Not all of us can have kissed so many boys as I have, you know.”

It took a moment to realize that his darling, hopeless Jane was being facetious about his experience. He let out a disbelieving snort. “Well, if I wanted to catch up proper, I’d have to kiss Noah. I think it’s more points if you kiss a rare kind of boy.”

“Like a dead one.”

“Yes, precisely.”

“Isn’t that exactly what he offered?”

There was a silence that wasn’t silent: the clink of dishes being washed the story below, the sound of their breathing, the crying of someone’s infant in the lower back room.

“It rather is, I suppose. Perhaps I should.” Gansey’s brain was unusually blank, or humming, like the gears in it weren’t certain how they should be turning, having neglected to calculate for an encounter like this.

Blue’s fingers were still hooked in the fabric of Gansey’s sweater, looking down at it while she rocked on her feet a little bit. She lifted her chin back up at him, curiously confident.

“Perhaps you should.”

“But still, I don’t know,” said Gansey, watching her expression. “It’d be awfully rude of me to kiss someone when you can’t. Selfish, or something.”

“Well, it’s not selfish if you share.”

“Right, of course. I wasn’t thinking. There’s that.”

The ellipses in the air were palpable.

“There is that.”

Gansey’s arms were detangled enough from Blue to lift his fingers to his jaw, scratching it thoughtfully and then rubbing over his lip.

“Jane,” he said.

“Richard,” said Blue, stepping back from him to assess him faux-formally.

Gansey made a face. “Ha, ha.” He pulled out the wooden chair from Blue’s desk, taking a seat in it backwards so that he could face her, arms folded over the top. “Is Noah going to be kissed by us?"

Blue scraped one of her ankles with the other foot’s toes. “That’s a darned good question, Richard.”

“It is, isn’t it,” sighed Gansey.

“Well. Is he?” Blue’s eyes were careful, eyebrows smooth and straight and still.

“Well, you’re going to kiss him on the cheek,” said Gansey. He felt like he was transported into the last century, participating in an elaborate courtship dance, balancing subtlety and boldness. He wasn’t sure he was breathing.

“That’s true, I am,” she agreed, nodding firmly, spiky ponytail bobbing.

“But then, other than that.”

“Other than that,” she echoed.

“... Hm,” said Gansey finally, unsure what else to say.

“Indeed,” said Blue. The two syllables contained much more than their letters.

“I mean.” Gansey resisted biting his lip. He had broken that habit at age 6.

“You _do_ mean,” affirmed Blue with appropriate meaning, causing Gansey to almost laugh.

“I feel like… it’s possible.”

“Oh?”

“That he might.”

“You _don’t_ say.”

He wasn’t sure if he could tell the difference between anticipative thrill and trepidation any more. Maybe they were the same.

“An unknown certainty.”

“Quite mysterious,” commented Blue.

“Quite!” agreed Gansey earnestly.

Then there was more silence, during which Jane pursed her lips and Gansey wiggled his jaw and both of them sort of looked at each other and sort of looked right next to the other’s head.

“Gansey,” said Blue at last.

“Jane,” he answered.

Her scowl was immediate. “Piss up a rope.”

“ _Blue_ ,” he said, alarmed and admiring.

“Thank you,” she said pertly.

“Gansey,” Gansey reminded her.

“What? That’s y–– oh, right. Gansey.”

“Yes, Blue.”

“Was Noah actually serious?”

Only now did her eyelashes stand out to frame her hesitant pupils, meeting his. Gansey took a moment to roll the answer around in his mouth, then let himself say the thing he hadn’t been willing to admit until this point.

“Funnily enough, I think he really was.”

“Huh,” breathed Blue, sinking to lean against the wall by her door.

“Indeed,” empathized Gansey.

“Gansey.”

“Blue-Jane-Blue.”

“This is a lot to think about,” Blue said. “Wanna go get yogurt?”

There was a complex flood of relief and excitement and exhaustion and adoration and something he couldn’t put a name to, some immense looming potential.

“You know, I absolutely, really, very much do.”


End file.
